Friday, July 10, 2009

From my desk I can see the top few floors of the buildings on the next block. Building 1 is a social housing type apartment block. The residents wear track-suits and yell a lot and I'm fairly sure many of the conversations we witness during the day could very well be drug deals. But who am I to judge.The building next to that is an office block. Slightly bedgraggled flowers in pots occupy window sills next to stacks of papers and pen-holders, and the window-blinds are always rolled up. Occasionally I see people moving around in the murkiness inside; probably, like us, getting up to a) make coffee b) have a meeting c) potty / smoke break or d) lunch break. Not terribly interesting.Building 3 is the prettiest of the lot. It has been built in the manner of the French style, with rooms in the roof, so to speak. I think it is an apartment block because the windows all look different from each other. I never see signs of life, leading me to believe the people who live there are not home during the day; i.e. they have jobs or go to college or do whatever else fills their lives... Except for the window on the end, second from the top. It seems a young couple live there. Every morning at around 11:50 Rapunzel flings the window open as wide as it will go, and smokes a cigarette, blowing the smoke outside. I notice the time because it's 10 minutes before I head downstairs for my own midday fag. She obviously doesn't want the apartment to smell of smoke; my guess is she is house-proud - there are 4 healthy-looking potplants on that window-sill and the curtains are prettily draped. And yes, I call her Rapunzel because she has really long blonde hair.Her flatmate is as just as predictable but much more disturbing. He must work night shift because every afternoon he arrives at the window for a good ol' stretch as if he's just rolled out of bed... stark naked. It's kind of distracting, for example if I'm on the phone with a colleague and I happen to glance out of my window just at that moment to see yer man in all his glory exposing himself to the Universe - does anyone remember the whole "Ugly Naked Guy" debacle from Friends...?!

I look out onto a paved courtyard in the middle of the building with a fishpond and some really big potted plants, and for most of the morning I am blinded by the sun reflecting off the windows across from me.Yours sounds much more interesting!

When I look out of my study window I see Africa. Only kidding, usually it's a view of hedgerows and fields and trees all in various shades of green topped off by a pale grey sky. Pretty, but uninspiring. See, the thing is I miss living on the edge - gimme the rhythm and quickening pulse beat of Africa and I'm as close to heaven as a girl can get!